The present invention relates to a cycloconverter system of the circulating current type to deliver a variable frequency ac current to a single- or polyphase load.
A cycloconverter is an apparatus to directly convert an ac power having a constant frequency into an ac power having a different frequency. The drawback with the cycloconverter is that it is necessary to commutate thyristors serving as elements constituting the cycloconverter by a power supply voltage, with the result that a large reactive power is produced from a power source. Further, the reactive power always varies in synchronism with a frequency on the side of a load. As a result, this not only requires the capacitance of a power system equipment to be increased, but also gives various bad influences on electric equipment connected to the same system.
To overcome this, a measure has been taken to install a reactive power compensating device at a receiving-end of a cycloconverter. However, such a measure results in large equipment, an increased area therefor and a high cost.
In view of this, a reactive power compensative cycloconverter as disclosed in the Japanese Publication Tokkaisho No. 56-44382 etc. is proposed to solve the above-mentioned problem. Namely, a cycloconverter of the circulating current type is used to connect a power factor compensating capacitor at a receiving-end of the cycloconverter, thus to control a circulating current of the cycloconverter so that a leading reactive power by the power factor compensating capacitor and a lagging reactive power by the cycloconverter are cancelled with each other. The role of a reactive power compensating device which has been needed in the prior art is incorporated within the cycloconverter itself. As a result, the conventional reactive power compensating device is not needed. According to this, the cycloconverter can be of a small size and lightened, and its cost can be reduced.
In the above-mentioned reactive power compensative cycloconverter system, the capacitance of a power factor compensating capacitor at the receiving-end is determined as a standard when the cycloconverter effects a rated operation. When an overload operation is expected, it is necessary to provide in advance a power factor compensating capacitor having a capacitance to cope therewith.
In other words, if one attempts to affect a control such that an input power factor at a receiving-end is always maintained at 1, an output capacity of the cycloconverter is determined by the capacitance of the power factor compensating capacitor, with the result that an overload running which requires a capacity above the capacitance of the load capacitor is impossible.
Further, when a power factor compensating capacitor having an excessive capacitance is connected in advance in anticipation of a overload operation, a circulating current which is to flow in a cycloconverter at the time of a rated load or a light load is increased. As a result, this leads to an increase in capacity of a converter or a power transformer, or will result in a system having a power efficiency due to an increase in loss.